You're reading: Court to announce its ruling on Tymoshenko’s appeal (updated)

The Higher Specialized Court of Ukraine for civil and criminal cases will announce its ruling on a cassation appeal by defense team of former prime minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko against her sentence in the gas supply contracts case at 10:00 on Aug. 29.

This information was posted on the official Web site of the Higher Specialized Court on Monday.

Earlier, the prosecutor asked the Higher Specialized Court to uphold
the seven-year prison sentence against Tymoshenko, which was handed down
and upheld by lower courts.

Tymoshenko’s lawyer Oleksandr Plakhotniuk insists that the verdict is
illegal and should be cancelled due to the absence of elements of
crime.

By law, a cassation court’s decision comes into force the moment it
is announced. It may be appealed in the European Court of Human Rights,
but only if the Higher Specialized Court upholds the verdict.

In case the court grants the appeal and acquits Tymoshenko, she may
be released from prison since no measure of restraint has been chosen in
other criminal cases against her.

On Oct. 11, 2011, Pechersky District Court in Kyiv sentenced
Tymoshenko to seven years of imprisonment for exceeding her authority
when signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009. She has been serving her
sentence at Kachanivska penal colony in Kharkiv since late December
2011.